Part inventor, part environmentalist and part chemical engineer, Christopher Alison, CEO of Ditec International Corp has a strong entrepreneurial spirit. “When I wake up in the morning the only thing I think about is the company and what we are doing with our chemicals,” he added: “ What keeps me going are new innovations, things that change our lives for the better.”

Born in Sweden, Alison speaks as passionately about the environment as he does about Ditec. Under the Ditec International umbrella, the company creates and produces environmentally safe sealants to preserve, and cleaning solutions that maintain all types of marine, auto, aeronautic and building surfaces subject to weather, from paint to teak, silver, leather and glass. The list of environmentally damaging chemicals not allowed in Ditec is long. “I do this because I like it. If we always think about money it doesn't work. People do best when they love what they are doing,” emphasized Alison, and surfaces are not all they do at Ditec.

Alison's newest product may radically change the shipping industry. Ships burn bunker fuel, the tar-like sludge left over after processing petroleum. Heating allows injection into an engine but it is loaded with sulfur, emitting sulfur dioxide when burned. Consider the enormous scale of a vessel's engine; with over 65,000 ships plying the seas, emission problems immediately magnify.

This year marine sulfur emissions must start lowering, reaching targets by 2020. Currently, ships can use post-burning sulfur scrubbers or marine gas oil (MGO) at twice the price, but another possibility will soon emerge from Ditec. Using pre-burning technology, Alison created a product to remove sulfur before fuel is injected into the engine, addressing the problem in a way that is “cleaner, less work, more effective and also cheaper.”

Ditec previously developed DNS-100 that cleans fuel before burning for gas turbine engines, and is currently installed in 8 Royal Caribbean ships. Alison explained how, in reducing alkaline metals like salts from fuel, “those engines surpassed their life expectancy, going over 25,000 hours without repair and saving an average of $1-3 million per year,”

Alison emphasizes, “When people talk about environmental issues or want something good to happen, I usually say 'try to fix it in your own backyard first' and Ditec is my backyard. I am privileged enough to actually be able to do something, to create something better that makes life better.”